


Clear Difference

by Wix



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Break-Up, Avengers Split, Gen, Moving On, Not Natasha Romanov Friendly, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, not wanda maximoff friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 17:46:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17965217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wix/pseuds/Wix
Summary: In the days following Ultron, Tony takes a moment to reflect and shares his thoughts about the similarities and the differences between two individuals who have come into his life for similar reasons: Yinsen and Wanda.





	Clear Difference

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys!  
> So just a short one-shot for you all today. I can't help but see the similarities in the stories of Yinsen and Wanda and yet how MASSIVELY differently they handled what happened and their interactions with Tony.  
> So this just stemmed from that.  
> With a dash of Avengers break-up because...Well because Tony needs to get the hell out and I like to help him do that.

It’s been a long day, and a longer night still. As it has been the case for most of his days post Sokovia and Ultron’s horrible designs on the world. There are so many questions flying around, so much fear and pain surrounding the events that the world is demanding answers for.

Tony understands it, and he wishes that he had all the answers – but he doesn’t. What he does have though is a powder keg waiting to go off. A powder keg that he doesn’t fully know how to handle or if he should even try to handle it. If he should even _want_ to handle it.

A powder keg named Wanda Maximoff.

The Sokovian native was certainly a…surprise when Steve showed up with her and her brother back at the Tower. In the days following that she was certainly a surprise when he saw her walking through the halls of the newly created Avengers Compound like she owned the place.

Steve’s given several long-winded speeches about ‘righting past wrongs’ and ‘making up for past mistakes’ whenever Tony is in the area to hear them and at first Tony thought that Steve was trying to say that Wanda was trying to do these things, despite no evidence to support it.

It only takes a little while before Tony realizes that Wanda is squeaky clean in Steve’s book for some reason. The person that Steve’s talking about who needs to do those things is _Tony_.

And it’s not just Steve doing that. Natasha does it while adding in a healthy dose of ‘checking his ego at the door’ and Clint seems strangely present despite supposedly retiring with his family. Although Tony would be curious to know what Laura would say about Clint’s sudden…interest in the pretty, young Sokovian woman who seems to know how to play the doe-eyed waify damsel to a ‘T’.

Bruce has left, to places unknown and Tony’s not surprised in the slightest when Natasha shows no signs of his loss. The only thing that Tony will give at this moment is that he’s realizing that he doesn’t know Natasha enough to know that if that’s her hiding her feelings or if she really just has none there. The possibility that Bruce was just another mark for the Black Widow to keep him on the leash for SHIELD is a thought that Tony had the moment that Natasha started going after the quiet doctor and yet he’s always kept it to himself. He had no proof and who knows, maybe the romantic in him hoped that everything was the way it showed itself to be on the surface level.

Vision is truly the only light in all of this darkness. The…evolution of JARVIS was certainly unscheduled and something that Tony had never actually considered the possibility of. The possibility that one day he would have to get up and there would be no JARVIS. Even when he was trapped in Afghanistan, he’d known that somewhere out there JARVIS was scouring the world’s information highways to see even the slightest hint of Tony somewhere out there. Vision has JARVIS’s voice, and a lot of awkward mannerisms that Tony can only guess come with a sudden shift into a body when once he was only code. Vision is also the only one that Tony can say in this ‘family’ – if that’s what they even are now that Bruce is gone and _Wanda_ is here – who doesn’t look like they’re hiding any negative emotions when they see Tony.

“What are you doing here?” Wanda’s voice cuts into his thoughts and Tony doesn’t turn around. He’s had a long night already and he’s not interested in catering to Wanda Maximoff.

“Didn’t you hear? I own the building.” Tony says, taking a drink of the tumbler in his hands. Tonight’s been a heavy night and it was certainly a ‘not sober’ night. He can sense the telltale signs of Wanda’s powers in the area. The kind of way that the hair on your arms and your neck stand up on edge, the feeling of being watched or that someone is in a room with you when you’re supposed to be alone. “Could you not.” Tony says to that, the alcohol undoubtedly making his tongue a little laxer than he might like.

“I haven’t forgotten what you did.” Wanda threatens behind him and the feeling intensifies. He thinks if he were any less tipsy, he might be shaking in fear. As it is, he can’t be bothered to care too much right now.

“And what was it that I ‘did’.” Tony asks her. “Please enlighten me.”

“You know what you did.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“You killed my parents.” Wanda growls, coming into his peripheral and there’s a red haze around her in the darkness. Tony doesn’t turn to look at her, he just keeps looking out the window over at the lights of the city in the distance.

“You know I didn’t.” Tony says, and he says it so matter-of-factly. “We both know that I didn’t.”

“It was your bomb.” She snaps. “Your fault.” Tony takes a moment to let that try to wash over him. He takes another sip and shakes his head.

“You know. I met a man once.” He starts out a story that he’s actually never told. It’s odd that he’s telling it to Wanda fucking Maximoff, but something about the correlation between the two people seems to allow it. “His family had been killed by a Stark bomb.”

“Just more in your long list of sins.” Wanda says and Tony sighs.

“I didn’t know at the time. He told me his village had died and that someday he hoped to be reunited with his family…I never made the connection that they died there and he never corrected me on it.” Tony takes another sip. “I think about him almost every day, and when you came onto the scene with your…accusations…I thought about him more. About the similarities between you two and the vast differences.” There are sounds off behind him and Tony knows that the others must have entered the area despite keeping quiet because the red glow has disappeared from Wanda’s form entirely. “He had my life in his hands. He was a doctor and I needed an impossible surgery to live.” Tony shakes his head. “He didn’t even hesitate. Here I was, the man who made the bomb that killed his family and he saved my life.”

“Because he had to.” Wanda spits on the memory of Yinsen and Tony shakes his head.

“The people who brought me to him had been paid to kill me. They hadn’t expected me to survive. They just threw me at him and said ‘see what you can do’. He could have killed me, could have made me suffer and no one would have done or said a thing to him.” Tony’s hand is shaking and he shifts the glass into his other to settle the emotions bubbling under the surface. “When I woke up, he helped me. He helped me get better, he helped me not be scared. He helped me build the first Iron Man armor.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Wanda finally asks and Tony shrugs.

“Because I see the difference between the two of you. I play a similar role in both stories and yet…he never blamed me. I was blind to what was happening behind the scenes and he knew it. He showed me, opened my eyes and then helped guide me up until the day he died for me.” There’s a tear that falls. One of the thousands that have fallen for the man who Tony holds up higher than his own father in his memories. “He never intended to make it out of that cave with me. Sometimes, I wonder if he held on as long as he did because I was there. Because he didn’t want to leave until I could.” Tony finally turns to look at her.

All he sees on her face is hatred, scorn and spite. It’s a sharp contrast to how he remembers Yinsen’s face. Two people on opposite sides of the spectrum and both with a similar origin story as far as Tony’s part in their lives is concerned.

“I didn’t kill his family, and Yinsen knew it.” He looks Wanda in the eyes. “And between the both of us? You know it too.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I’m really not.” Tony says. “I’m just Tony. I’m not anything else or anyone else. I’ve taken lives with my own hands, I’m not claiming innocence in that.” She snorts at that. “But I did not, I have never and I would never actively double deal to terrorists and sit back while innocent people were terrorized.”

“And yet you profited off of their terror.”

“I make weapons Wanda.” Tony says to that. “I sell to the American government. I am an American citizen. I am a businessman and I am a legacy to a corporation that existed long before I walked this earth.” Tony shakes his head. “I’m nothing special. In fact, my skills are a dime a dozen. Do you know how easy it is to make something that goes boom? It’s one of the easier things in the world. People don’t need my weapons to hurt and terrorize each other and I didn’t make them for any other reason than to try and save more lives on the ground than we had previously been losing.”

“So you think you’re a hero?” She snaps and Tony feels nothing but exhaustion.

“Do you know why trench warfare happened?” Tony asks. “Because technology had shifted and soldiers were being _plowed down_ left and right. Do you think the people outside the trenches cared about that? Do you think the brass at the top gave a damn about all those young men who weren’t ever going to see their families again?” Tony motions out to the world at large. “War is happening Wanda and I made a promise to myself to try and make it to where as few soldiers as possible would be left _rotting_ on the battlefields when I took over Stark Industries R&D. You signed up to Hydra to save your people? I kept my father’s legacy alive to do the same. The only difference between the two of us is that I chose to do that by making weapons and you turned yourself into one.”

“There is nothing similar about us.” Wanda growls, taking a step towards him. “And I am nothing like this man. I would have killed you like you deserved.”

“You’re right, you’re nothing like Yinsen.” Tony says with a nod. “I was wrong. I ignored the biggest determinant.” He looks her in the eyes. “Yinsen had a heart.”

“I have a heart.”

“Have you listened to it recently? Tell me Wanda, when was the last time you put your fingers on the pulse of your soul to see if it’s still there?” Tony says back to her. “Yinsen changed the world, he changed _my_ world and he did it – not through hate and spite and all the things that make up this person that stands before me - he did it with kindness and compassion and understanding. He gave birth to a new direction for my life in that cave and I’m not going to stand here and pretend that you have any leg to stand on to try and make me feel guilty for something I didn’t do.” Tony takes a step back and turns to look at Steve, Natasha and Sam in the area. “I’m not going to stand here and let _any_ of you do that.”

“Tony, we weren’t trying to-” Natasha starts but Tony cuts her off.

“I’m leaving the Avengers.” That simple phrase is freeing and he watches as surprise crosses the others faces. “Iron Man will return to being solo. I wash my hands of you. You can keep the Compound, and I’ll check in from time to time to make sure things are working properly…but we’re done.”

“Why?” Steve asks and Tony appreciates how he doesn’t try to offer up a false attempt at trying to get him to stay. It’s clear by his face and his body language that he’s relieved by Tony’s declaration.

“Because you’re evil.” Tony replies to that in the easiest way he can. “You’re toxic, not just to me but to the world. You go around destroying and judging everything you cross and then you conveniently rewrite the story to make it seem like you were some dashing, daring hero who just _had_ to do what he did.” Tony shakes his head. “The ground is littered with SHIELD agents and civilians alike who have your names written on the line for ‘cause of death’ and I’m…I’m done being attached to something that I have no true control over the direction it takes and yet that I’m always the one paying for when everything goes wrong.”

“We are the good guys Tony.” Natasha says softly. “You know that. Look at all the good we’ve done.”

“The scales aren’t balancing themselves out.” Tony replies to that. “And I’m tired of trying to make people think that they do. You’re not good guys. Honestly I’m not even sure if you’d know what one was if you met them.”

“And you think you’re one?” Sam asks and he crosses his arms in a way that reminds Tony of Steve’s body language.

“I’ve never thought I was.” Tony responds to that honestly. “But at least I don’t go around thinking that I am and demonizing anyone who says otherwise.”

“We’ve never done that.” Steve argues and Tony just smiles.

“Of course not. Well go on, you finally got what you wanted. I’ve bowed out.” Tony drains the last of his drink and puts the glass down. He grabs his jacket and puts it on, walking towards the door. He pauses at it though and turns to look at them – to look at Steve in particular. “You may not be a hero, but you better stop pretending not to be a threat.” It’s clear that Steve understands the rewording of his previous comments to Tony by the way the frown overtakes his face and Tony just turns and walks out.

It’s time to start over.

**Author's Note:**

> Please no comments of a negative or critiquing nature. Thank you.


End file.
